Malaysia hits out at palm oil 'smears'

The chief minister of Malaysia's biggest state has accused a number of organisations of conducting "smear campaigns" about logging within the state's tropical rainforest. Pehin Sri Haji Abdul Taib Mahmud told the International Media and Environment Summit (Imes) in Sarawak that allegations the state was clearing protected areas to create space for palm oil trees were being put about by non-palm-oil producing nations. He dismissed claims by environmental group Friends of the Earth that palm oil tree planting was a threat to orang-utans as "not correct, and misleading".